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The Id and The Odyssey; Episode 23

Frank's Speech

At five o’clock
Frank announced over the intercom for everybody t a gather at the
door leading to the office. Frank stood on a bench. He waited for
everyone huddle close. There were about 30 dock workers, drivers, and
office workers. He asked if anyone was missing. “I am,” said one
worker. Everybody laughed.

Frank cleared his
throat and held out his hands to quiet everybody. “If I should die
tomorrow my brother Pete would take over, and he should die the next
day Sam would take over. Now if Pete takes over you’ll probably
kill him anyway just to get Sam.” Laughter broke out. “What I’m
sayin’ is this, The future is uncertain. A union might be able to
make it more certain. I’ve told you all from day one, the day the
majority wants a union is the day we get a union. I’ve given the
union permission to come on my property and talk to you for two hours
and then you vote. I don’t care what the vote is, but we will go by
the contract. That changes nothing about how I feel about you or what
I will do for you. As to the men that walked out they got jobs like
nothing happened and nobody treats them badly. They’ve worked hard
and got good records.”

“Do we have to
go to the meeting?” One man asked.

Frank pressed his
lips, “It’s mandatory.”

“What if we get
sick?” One man said.

“Look if you’re
not cooperative they’ll think that I’m up to something funny,”
Frank said. “Go, listen, and vote.” He paused carefully looking
at everybody. “Let’s take the rest of the night off. We’re all
a little tired.”

The men murmured.

“Before you all
go home I just want to say one more thing. The last two days we had a
young man working here named Joe Deacon. Hold your hand up Joe. Joe
slept in the office last night when two former employees climbed
through the back fence. They had two five gallon cans of gasoline, a
crowbar, and a 38. They took two shots at Joe as he tried to get away
from them. If Joe would not have risked his life and took the time to
call me those two would have robbed the cash I had in the office and
used the gasoline to set this place on fire. We’d all been screwed.
Joe’s just passin’ through, but I’m sure we want to wish him
well. There ain’t anything I could say that would be enough. Your
folks must be pretty proud of you.”

Frank stepped
down from the bench and everybody exceedingly thanked Joe.

Rich
thought how wrong they were. “They don’t really know me. If they
saw how I gave up on so many things and disappointed so many people
they would certainly take back everything. This was a fluke. I was a
coward running for my life and running away from life.”

Frank drove Rich
to his home with his bike and gear in the trunk.

“You like
pizza?” Frank said.

“Yeah,” Rich
said.

“There’s dumb
Pollocks and smart Pollocks. I’m a smart one,” Frank said
seriously and then smiled broadly. “I married an Italian.” He
laughed. “Maybe where you’re from it means nothing, but in the
city and on the east coast there’s old grudges and suspicions and
ways. Everybody is an individual, but the word is Italian’s love
everybody, German’s hate everybody, Irish owe everybody, Jews loan
to everybody, and Pollocks will work for them all.”

“The pizza,
home made.” Frank said. “You won’t find it this good in any
restaurant. Your Mom a good cook?”

“Tryin’ to
get me talk about home, huh?” Rich said.

Frank grinned.

“She’s not so
good,” Rich said.

“Kind of meat
and potatoes stuff,” Frank said. “Not too spicy.”

“That’s it,”
Rich said.

“You’re
looking for spice aren’t you?” Frank said.

“Yeah,
yeah,” Rich said. “I guess you could say that. I never thought of
it that way.”

From Kenton Lewis: You Must Read This First To Know What The Heck Goes On Here

This site contains mostly fiction. Currently a novel is posted every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday entitled Beyond Beyond. It is broken down into short episodes between two and four pages each. Thus, if you enter on anything other than episode 1, it would be good the scroll down to find previous episodes.

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This Is He

Taken shortly after my beheading. I refused to give up coffee. "Not from my cold dead hands!"